Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Is Polygamy a Feminist issue?


Polygamy has been around for many centuries but it has recently been highlighted in the media compliments of our President, Jacob Zuma. In January this year, South Africa gained its third first lady when Zuma married Tobeka Madiba. The ruling party promised the South African public that they would be committed to gender equality and this has clearly been violated with Zuma's polygamy.

Could you imagine the uproar should we have had a female president with multiple husbands and dozens of children who don’t know who their father was? Polygamy is most definitely, in my mind, a violation of women’s rights and an insult.

However another question we could ask ourselves is ‘Why do women allow themselves to be involved in such marriages?’ Surely no women would choose to be someone’s second or third wife and which ‘first’ wife would want to share her husband with multiple other women. It’s a legal way for men to openly have multiple affairs and feel good about it.

#SMED10

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